The Surrey policing transition has been fumbled from the beginning. Public safety minister Hon. Mike Farnworth has allowed politics to lead the policy and the result has been expensive and unnecessary. Now the RCMP union President Brian Sauve is stating publicly that the Minister has issued...
By now you have likely heard about the scandal brewing involving a grant program administered by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation. The allegation that has been sent to the Auditor General is that the government contractor was both adjudicating the grant applications, and...
The Minister of Health, Hon. Adrian Dix, has stood in the legislature and talked about how he is spending billions more each year on the healthcare system. His budget has ballooned from $21 billion (2017/18) to $36 billion this year. My constituency email is full of stories from our constituency...
The BC NDP government has their priorities wrong. While drought grips British Columbia the provincial government is prioritizing electricity and water for the fracking industry. In order for our province to meet CleanBC climate action targets requires electrification. Drought is causing tremendous...
You have probably seen the fossil fuel lobby advertising campaign with bright green bus ads and highway billboards making specious claims that BC NDP LNG will reduce emissions. It of course is nonsense. However, they are spending a lot of money promoting these misleading statements across the...
While the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction pays the funeral cost of the lowest income British Columbians, they will not pay for a basic grave marker. It makes little sense. For more than a year the Ministry has defended the indefensible that they are burying people in unmarked...
The healthcare system is failing British Columbians. Yet, the finance minister continues to hand the health minister billions of dollars in an expanded budget. Last year, the health minister Hon. Adrian Dix signed an agreement with BC Nurses to ensure there was a safe patient-nurse ratio. He still...
With the BC Builds program, essentially a recycled HousingHub that the BC NDP announced in 2018 they have reclassified middle-income for a household from $50-100,000 as it was in the former program to $84-191,000. The BC NDP have offered little relief for people making under $84,000 and so the...
In Question Period, I asked the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Hon. Mike Farnworth about accountability for the RCMPs Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG). Minister Farnworth suggested that when there are incidents that are described in the courts of discrimination and...
The Minister of Social Development, Hon. Sheila Malcolmson, is often ignored in questions period. The minister is responsible for important work. On critical area is the implementation of the Accessibility BC Act. Our built environment continues to be tremendously challenging for people, for...
The BC NDP provided $19 million dollars to fund Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls while spending $50 million on a special RCMP unit called the Community-Industry Response Group that has violently arrested Indigenous land defenders. [Transcript] A. Olsen: We've seen this Minister of...
For years, the governing party in British Columbia has nurtured a broken child welfare system. It doesn’t matter if it was the BC Liberals, or now the BC NDP. The BC Green Caucus has been raising issues related to the Ministry of Children and Family Development for years. We have provided ideas to...
For years, my colleague Sonia Furstenau, MLA (Cowichan Valley) and I have been asking for the Minister of Children and Family Development to require social workers to be members of the College of Social Workers. They have failed to make this a basic requirement and it is hard to imagine another...
The B.C. Supreme Court says it is a human right for a mother to be able to continue breastfeeding her newborn child. The Children and Family Development minister Hon. Mitzi Dean says that these human rights will be protected “wherever possible.” That basically sums up how she prioritizes the human...
The BC NDP should be applauded for their continued support of the carbon tax, however their energy policy leaves a lot to be desired. Disinformation being spread minimizing the climate impacts of the LNG industry, using the image of Minister of Energy, Hon. Josie Osborne, in addition to Premier...
The last updated estimate of the cost of the Site C dam was in 2021 with then Premier John Horgan announced he had managed the project budget from the initial $6.8 billion to an astounding $16 billion. Try to get information about the project and you can’t because the BC NDP government has it...
Healthcare continues to be a top priority for people living in Saanich North and the Islands. Healthcare spending has increased by $8.43 billion since Minister Adrian Dix took control of the health file. From what I have heard from my constituents, they are not seeing the benefit from the...
The Minister of Children of Family Development, Mitzi Dean, continues to let down British Columbia’s most vulnerable children. Internal audits continue to show the Minister’s team is failing to deliver the most basic social work policy and procedures, fails to deliver oversight of their offices,...
The Minister of Children and Family Development, Mitzi Dean, has failed to deliver the systemic change needed in the Ministry, and as a result she has failed the most vulnerable children in our province. We continue to see reports about the tragic results produced by the Ministry, and still the...
I have heard from many families that psychiatric emergency services excludes them from the care of their loved ones in a mental health crisis. It is wonderful that Health Minister Adrian Dix met with Crystal Kenzie and Cindy Zimmer following my questions, and he acknowledged that the mental health...
British Columbia Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie released her second report Billions More Reasons to Care outlining the dramatic differences in the delivery of publicly funded care for seniors in long-term care facilities. You can learn more here. In summary, the report shows that for-profit...
BC's Conservation Service is a police service. They dress like police, drive similar cars, carry assault rifles & have police-like powers under the Police Act. But conservation officers have no independent oversight. This must change. The lack of oversight has created space for the abuse of power & toxicity...
Public schools in B.C. have been chronically underfunded for years. Now, multi-million budget shortfalls are forcing school boards to choose between combining classes, cutting programs, or relocating students. The BC NDP must put the needs of students first. Vancouver School Board is facing a $5.9 million deficit this...
A new report from BC's Representative for Children & Youth revealed that 470 children in foster care go missing each month. Today I asked Premier David Eby to explain if the kids under his care are safe. He could not be bothered to stand and answer. The BC NDP are failing to protect our most vulnerable children....
The Mental Health Act has not been substantially updated since 1964. Our understanding of mental health and substance use disorders has changed since the last century. Our laws need to reflect that. I asked Premier David Eby if he'd commit to a full review. He refused to stand up and answer. Instead Minister Jennifer...
Our policing services have grown increasingly authoritarian, militaristic & out of reach of oversight. The Vancouver Police Department Chief bragged about answering to nobody, saying “I don’t report to any politician. I don’t report to the City, the province, or the federal government." The VDP restricted media...